One law for some

Written By: - Date published: 7:48 pm, June 4th, 2012 - 18 comments
Categories: budget2012, education, same old national, schools - Tags:

Wanganui Collegiate School has been in financial trouble, with not even annual fees of $9775 per day pupil and $19,775 for a boarder enough to keep it afloat. After Anne Tolley gave it $800,000 last year, the National Party’s Budget 2012 has given it another $3million over two years. Wanganui Collegiate has since boasted of its low class sizes in paid advertisements, a move which has upset some state schools in the area.

There are four other secondary schools in Wanganui. Wanganui City College, 63% of whose pupils are Maori,  has 100 more students than decile 10 Collegiate. City College’s  operating budget is $1million, two-thirds of the additional government grant to Collegiate, which comes on top of the fees. Besides lower class sizes, Collegiate is also now advertising that it can offer significant fee reductions, no doubt because of  the taxpayer subsidy.

Wanganui Collegiate owns the old St George’s Preparatory School,  and which is now closed and on the market with a valuation of $3.1million. I think Collegiate should give the $3million back to the taxpayer when it sells. Private schools will no doubt be using the current outrage over class sizes for recruiting purposes, but they should not be doing it with taxpayers’ money.

18 comments on “One law for some ”

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  1. Draco T Bastard 1
    4 June 2012 at 7:59 pm

    We need a law that cover obvious subsidies to preferred private businesses by governments such as this. One that has the party(s) which makes the subsidies available pay the full costs plus 25% interest back to the government.

    • mac1 1.1
      4 June 2012 at 9:49 pm

      The State college in which I taught got into financial strife and borrowed over a million dollars from the Ministry in a package which included financial oversight by a Ministry appointee for a time. The package had to be paid back over ten years (in effect a 10% reduction in the annual grant).

      I wonder whether there was a payback provision with Collegiate and also whether financial oversight was instituted.

  2. Kotahi Tane Huna 2
    4 June 2012 at 8:26 pm

    Simple – nationalise any private school that has mooched off the tax payer, without compensation. Make it clear that this will happen to any private school that does so in the future. The same policy would work for the power companies: no-one will buy shares that will be confiscated in 2014.

    It’s time to turn the tables, and get tough on Tory bullshit. I know “get tough” policies have a history of total humiliating failure, but I have a feeling this might just be the exception.

    • Murray Olsen 2.1
      5 June 2012 at 6:55 pm

      That’d probably be all of them then. Nationalisation has to be better than giving them more money. I support your idea.

  3. joe90 3
    4 June 2012 at 9:26 pm

    Par for the course for the ringies because in their hearts they’re so fucking special that they deserve extra-special help to avoid the last thing they want, integration.

    • mike e 3.1
      4 June 2012 at 9:42 pm

      welfare for the rich

    • Pascal's bookie 3.2
      5 June 2012 at 7:28 am

      ringies

      Actually loled at that, heven’t heard it for years. Poor bastards. God those little oiks used to get some stick, having to wear formal uniform if they were about town. On bloody Sunday. hahaha.

  4. irascible 4
    4 June 2012 at 11:23 pm

    One would hope that Parata & KeY insisted that Collegiate placed itself under statuatory management and began the process to close in a competitive market because it was obviously failing to deliver the service required to make its existence sustainable!
    Great to see that the subsidy has been designed to provide for smaller class sizes immediately after the budget announced that quality of education can only be achieved through increased class sizes. Mind you Parata would think that over 22 is a big class after her education in small classes in the schools she attended. None of her recorded schools appear to have been ever big enough to have more than 25 in a class – though she insists they had classes of 42.

  5. xtasy 5
    5 June 2012 at 1:48 am

    Oh no, cannot have his – hersy!

    One rule and law for all, how despiccable, eh?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&NR=1&v=86LSuXi5TLU

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=4xRJ6jbCv1o

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTf4pT-3Cto

    ONE LAW FOR SOME ALL OVER THE PLACE, PLEASE YOURSELVES OR NOT!

    Viva la revolution!

  6. Dr Terry 6
    5 June 2012 at 6:34 am

    How we will get such elitism out of society I do not know; it goes almost as a matter of course with the rich (Key), and carries all those “benefits” which for some reason are not viewed as beneficial for State schools.

    Parata’s first schooling was from her parents (privileged people), early school, local (presumably small) schools in Ruatoria, senior school Gisborne Girls’ High. Yes, I should imagine fairly small classes on the whole. Regardless, not every child could have had her brains and early preparation.
    Bright people, of course, do not always act intelligently!
    .

  7. vto 7
    5 June 2012 at 8:28 am

    So private schools get funding top-ups to maintain small class sizes, and…

    public schools get funding cuts to maintain large class sizes.

    Now I know a lot of Collegiate old boys move to Wellington and stay there so how about one of you explain how this ripoff works..

  8. Sam 8
    5 June 2012 at 9:53 am

    As national are doing, privatising our education. Basicly what it means is that if your child goes to a state school, it will receive a lower standard of education according to the bail out of the private school. This is wrong and we need to do something about it.

    Sam

  9. Richard Christie 9
    5 June 2012 at 11:51 am

    I’ll wait in vain for the NZ Herald to cover this story.

  10. Matthew 10
    5 June 2012 at 11:58 am

    Wanganui Collegiate should take a leaf out of the American private school book, & hit up some of its old boys for donations. Im sure Prince Andrew or Edward or whichever royal prat it was who attended there can find a few quid down the back of the chaise-lounge.

    • joe90 10.1
      5 June 2012 at 1:02 pm

      The years of scrapping and bowing in an attempt to impress the bludgers in chief put their financial woes beyond the old boys Matthew.